PONDERING

Joel Weishaus

 

Good afternoon Joel.

The pond appears to be part of native wetlands which acts, amongst several other things, as regional detention. In short, floodplain/wetland areas are mostly required to remain untouched. My educated guess would be that these wetland areas could have become more 'pond like' with the construction of the roads that intersect them. The culverts may have slowed the wetland stream and created what exists today. (1)

 

 

Let us reflect upon the myth of Narcissus, who looked into a pool and fell in love with the image of himself. This same water reflects the narcissistic image we have of ourselves as Gaia's beautiful genius children born on the top branch of the Tree of Evolution, the tree we ourselves had planted.

Reflected behind the face Narcissus fell in-love with is the planet we are presently systematically eviscerating; and behind this image is a fathomless universe hospitable to oxygen-dependent beings only in their dreams, entertainments, and clever technologies.
Will we become that amphibian again who left the sea more than 300 million years ago to walk on alien terrain and create a future human being who is "no longer a form but a process"?(2)

Without an image
the mirror, too,
is lonely.

There are two famous ponds in Literary History: Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond, and Matsuo Basho's poem: Old pond / a frog leaps in / plop! (3 ) While Walden has become a tourist destination, Basho's pond remains an enigma, a koan, a question to ponder upon.

Here lies the chasm between corporeal and sublime, reality and mind, short-term investmant and sustainable work of art. On these muddy shores humanity "poetically dwells."(4)

 

1. Matthew Johnson, Senior Planner / Community Development. City of Forest Grove, OR. (Slightly edited)
2. Claire Colebrook, "What's Wrong With Extinction?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNdXSbgXhU0.
3 There are innumerable translations of Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizo no oto.
4. Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. He is quoting Friedrich Hölderlin.

Notes:
-Made to be viewed on a 13" or larger screen.
-Images are not AI generated.

 

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

 

1. Think Through The Angles
2. In An Early Era the Pond Had

  

For Susan, always.

Thanks to:The University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research, and
Portland State University, Department of Philosophy, for your invaluable support.